Thank You, May I Have Another?
Accepting the Gifts of Rejection. Over and Over Again.
We went to London this past weekend to celebrate.
I had bought tickets to the Six musical playing at the Vaudeville Theatre in London. My daughter really wanted to see it, so I got her the tickets as her Christmas gift. When confirming the date, I specifically wanted Mach 9th showing. That date somehow gained significance for us over the course of the past six months.
At some point last summer, moving back to the US (from Paris) became a discussion point for our family – and when I say family, I mean the extended members: the ex-husband, the new wife, the dog, the kids, everyone! To create true optionality, we started to look at schools in New York City, in Los Angeles and in Paris. Before we knew it, October came around and we were sucked into the school admissions process.
While we’ve been through this process multiple times, this time around is different. The stakes are a bit higher, because I’m not the only one who is old enough to feel the rejection. The kids are now fully exposed.
For three months, non-stop we…
Filled out applications.
Wrote essays.
Reflected.
Re-wrote essays.
Edited.
Wrote more essays.
Cried cause the essays weren’t good.
Cried cause the essays at the end were really good.
Learned we have superpowers
Learned those superpowers are also our kryptonite.
Prepped for interviews.
Mastered our story.
Asked lots of questions.
Stumbled during assessment.
Sometimes rebounded flawlessly.
These kids poured their heart into these applications. They worked nights, weekends, they prepped during lunch time at school, before school. They woke up at the early morning hours to take assessments. They learned how to balance the daily demands of their schoolwork with the added workload and pressure of the admissions process. When we submitted the final applications in early January, I asked the kids how they felt. They both immediately responded: Accomplished. Proud. Relieved.
March 8th rolls around. It’s decision day.
I knew this would be a big day – we would either celebrate the big win(s) or we would need a distraction to take our mind off the realities of the decision. Hence, the spectacle of London.
Turns out we needed both a celebration and a distraction.
Emma got accepted to one, waitlisted to two. XJ got waitlisted to two, rejected to one. As the week would pass, Emma’s acceptance would increase, and XJs rejection would increase. Where Emma had options to choose from, XJ had none to consider.
So many questions, so many feelings.
How do you celebrate the accomplishment of one child, while holding space for feelings of rejection for the other?
How do you create a space of acceptance for XJ without the feeling of defeat, discouragement, frustration? How do you get him to see the gift of rejection through the cloud of disappointment?
How do you recognize Emma’s achievement so she feels the acknowledgement of her success, yet not feed into her perfectionist mindset that fully commits to “outcome is king”?
But, right or wrong, at this very moment I was consumed with XJ’s feeling of sadness. So I became laser focused on him. But he wanted none of it. He just wanted to spend the day with his friend walking along the Tower Bridge, seeing the Shakespeare Globe, taking a ride on the London Eye. For those few hours, the feeling of sadness and the worry of the future were completely numbed, because he was living in the moment and experiencing time as it only exists in the present – with his friend in London.
After we got back to Paris, the realities started to set in, and a wave of sadness took over again. I didn’t know what to do other than share with him the powerful lessons I learned from failures and rejection along the way. God knows I have had my fair share.
Here it goes.
Rejection is protection and redirection. The thing you wanted, the thing you were striving for and didn’t get, is not what is currently planned for you. There’s something better out there, even though it may not feel like it now, you must trust in the process. It directs you to a path that will ultimately serve you bountiful over time. Your job now is (1) take from this rejection any learnings you can find and have it in your toolkit (2) don’t let the feelings of disappointment take over you and to discourage you. It’s ok to feel sad. Be sad. Acknowledge it’s a feeling and let it move through you.
Things get harder as you get older. Accept that. It’s more difficult to get a job than to get into college, it’s more difficult to get into college than it is to get into high school, it’s more difficult to get into high school than it is to get into middle school. All the different experiences are just dress rehearsals for things that matter more later on in life. That’s the point of rejection, that’s the point of failures. It helps you learn and improve and be ready for when your time arrives.
Worrying for the future is a waste of time. Your mind is creating an imaginary situation entangled in infinite scenarios of what-ifs and therefore creating fear. There’s no way to cope with such a situation because the situation simply does not exist. It’s a mental phantom. All you have to deal with in real life is this moment, now. You can’t address the future narrative your mind is creating, because it does not exist. Ask yourself what problem you have right NOW, not what will exist in 5 minutes, tomorrow or next year. You can always cope with the now, but never with the future. Nor do you have to. The answer, the strength, the right action or the resource will be there when you need it. Not before and not after. Trust and surrender to this process.
Failures and rejections are lessons, but only if you allow them to be. How you choose to react to them will not only determine your state of mind, but it will also determine your future path. Good news: The only thing you have full control over in life IS how you show up. It’s all in your hands.
Every negative feeling has a positive attraction. You will only fully appreciate the positive by first experiencing the negative. When you feel rejected, acceptance will feel abundant; when you feel pain, pleasure will feel gratifying; when you feel disappointment, excelling will feel satisfying; when you lose, winning will feel exhilarating. These feelings are the great pleasures of life and you can only gain access to them through experiencing the opposite, first.
This too shall pass.
3 Things This Week In My Mind and On My Heart
(1) I highly recommend the Six Musical. As the name somewhat suggests, it’s about the six wives of King Henry VIII, it’s done in a creative and entertaining way. It was such a great production. The soundtrack, the band, the costumes, the makeup, all of it was just spectacular.
(2) I went to the Picasso Museum in Paris (in the Marais). The museum itself is fantastic, I highly recommend it. But my favorite part of it is the playground in the back and right across from it there’s a cafe that serves drinks in to-go cups. So, I got a pint of beer in a plastic cup, sat on the sidewalk with the rest of the crowd and enjoyed the sun that I had not seen in months. That’s the thing about Parisians, as complicated as they seem, they find the joys in the simplest things in life. Beer in a plastic cup, sitting on the sidewalk. C’est tout.
(3) I discovered butter like I have never tasted before. It’s a fairly common brand that is available in all the grocery stores in Paris. I don’t know how I have never discovered this before. Oh, I know why, cause they have 3 aisles-worth of butter at the grocery stores in Paris and to go through every brand would cause a massive heart attack. Anyway, I saw a few Americans literally taking bricks of this butter back to the US so I had to try it. It’s creamy, it’s soft, it has perfectly coarse crystal salts, it’s a perfect balance of salty and creamy, it’s just so good.
❤️❤️❤️